Farewell Blogosphere!

In the past two years our family has undergone several major changes. After 9 years of home schooling, we are in a public school; after 15 years of being a SAHM, I'm working part-time; and perhaps most significantly, we have been building our own house while living in the basement of said construction. What that means is my beautiful kitchen has been replaced by something far less lovely and I no longer have the time and inclination to make beautiful food. I miss my kitchen, I miss being hospitable, and I miss the blog. It stays up because it is a very convenient means to keep many of my recipes. <3

Stale bread

I’m so excited to participate in a Sugar High Friday event! Many thanks to Monisha for hosting and coming up with the creative Flower Power theme. I made one of the Husband’s favorite treats — chocolate flowers.

This is something I learned from the same book from which I got the idea for the zucotto. This is the best thing I learned from it. For these I used Ghirardelli chocolate candy and Wilton white candy melts, adding some pink food dye to part of the latter.

You mold these flowers using a balloon. The best is a small water balloon (available year round in the party section of WalMart) — the first time I made these I tried partially blowing up larger balloons but they were still too big and each held about a cup of filling. Blowing up a water balloon is difficult and rather than bursting the blood vessels in your head, buy a package of twisty balloons with a pump and try this method:

Melt the chocolate and pour onto your work surface; I use the marble pastry board the Husband gave me a few years ago. The chocolate needs to be about body temp or you may burst the balloon and make a big mess. Dip the balloon base into the chocolate and roll outward and back vertically, turn and dip again until you have made petals around the entire balloon. Set the dipped balloons on a wax paper lined tray.

Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or overnight. Snip the top of the balloon and gently peel it out of the chocolate/candy. The danger of leaving them in overnight is the latex will stick to the chocolate and won’t release very well.

Some of the bases will have a hole or be thin and may need a little melted chocolate applied to the inside base.

Then they are ready to be filled as desired. For these, I used some Cool Whip for nondairy reasons, some I added cocoa to, some I added a mixture of banana, strawberry, sugar and gelatine to make a ‘mousse’. I piped it into the flowers with my large Wilton 2D tip.

These are not fast and it takes a little bit to get the technique just so but they make a spectacular presentation so they’re worth it. 🙂

You can see them again here in a larger version used with ice cream filling for a birthday.

***Update: Thank you to the kind reader who nominated me to the Death By Chocolate contest. Rather than enter these flowers, I made a new recipe. If you like it, then please vote for me and maybe YOU will win a cookbook, chocolates, or even a trip for two to Napa for a Death By Chocolate experience! Voting ends Friday, 8 February so hurry!!

They are definitely the sort of thing that makes your guests say ‘wow’ when they are served — it’s always good to have a couple of those up your sleeve 😉

I like the versatility of the chocolate/candy as a vessel — the mousse can be its own interesting dessert but served in a chocolate flower it becomes far more impressive. Before making mousse this week, I used to just make whipping cream fillings — plain sweetened, chocolate, orange liqueur, raspberry, strawberry, etc.

The mousse filling, whether made with Cool Whip or a cream/gelatine mixture, definitely has a longer life but even then you want to fill them the same day you serve them; the flowers can be made several days ahead and stored in the fridge.

I have it on good authority that these, when served with a proposal dinner in the presence of a couple dozen roses and two people who already like each other a lot, can yield a ‘yes’ answer to said proposal. 😉 Congrats to Steve and Sam! 08/08/08 will be a good day! 😀

Steve — The Husband was *very* impressed that you even attempted them, let alone made them twice! Kudos!

omg, I can’t wait to make these for my next party. I love the “wow” factor, that these little treat will create. they are just beautiful, for any occassion. thanks for sharing such a wonderful site. its my first visit but not my last. marie, windsor, ontario, canada